A REAL touch-screen

The bright people over at Toronto’s Fourth Wall Media — who have done some really nice looking work in the Toronto subway system and in some Hilton hotels in Canada — are part of a mobile interactive display for Vaseline that really puts a different spin on the whole notion of touch-screens.

The brand has a 900-square foot interactive display going around to major shopping malls, encouraging people to poke at a 32-inch screen to get graded on their “touch quotient.”

Another station has a mannequin with designated touch points that, when prodded, lights up video areas that have little fact pieces about body parts (and undoubtedly why you need to slather Vaseline on them so they don’t fall off).

“The brand’s studies show that there’s a touch deficit in Canada and Vaseline is trying to explain that without the hard sell, so we decided to take a science centre approach,” Fourth Wall’s Ian Gadsby says in a news release.

The display is at a mall in Calgary right now and tours around for a few more weeks.

I like this notion because it at least tries to draw people to the screens with something far more interesting than the “pound away here to learn more about this product” schtick you see with most interactive screens.

Given that the display is intended for busy moms, I am not sure how many of them have the time to stop and learn up on skin lotion, but good on Fourth Wall and the other people behind this for trying something new and going well beyond simply sticking up a big screen as display eye candy.